On the Day Twitter Banned Trump, Parler Downloads Surged by More Than 500%
The service is now shut down as it seeks a new hosting service
App downloads of “free speech” platforms Parler and MeWe jumped in the days following riots at the Capitol on Wednesday and the subsequent permanent suspension of President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. Before Parler’s removal from the App Store and Google Play on Friday, the platform gained tens of thousands of downloads in the United States alone.
According to daily download data from Apptopia, which tracks mobile app trends, Parler was downloaded roughly 16,600 times in the U.S. last Wednesday, 14,300 times on Thursday, and approximately 94,700 times on Friday, up until its removal from app stores.
MeWe, which functions similarly to Facebook, saw roughly 9,200 U.S. downloads on Wednesday, approximately 13,800 on Thursday, and more than 34,000 downloads on Friday, January 8.
In the few days leading up to Wednesday’s riots, Parler averaged roughly 14,500 daily downloads while…
